


you washed up so far from home

by zoophobic



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier is Canon, Fix-It of Sorts, Other, Temporary Character Death, adding ship tags... later..., also others probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 21:48:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21083606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoophobic/pseuds/zoophobic
Summary: [alternatively titled, "be honest with me. what brought you back? it wasn't you. you hated this place the same way you hated the sea: deep, dark, unfamiliar."]Twenty-seven years after everything, It comes back.And then It comes back again, Eddie Kaspbrak and Stanley Uris in tow.





	you washed up so far from home

**Author's Note:**

> hi! welcome to my first real multi-chapter fic. i haven't written in a while so this is pretty clunky. i won't say too much here, but i hope you enjoy!

Edward Kaspbrak wakes up.

Myra is asleep beside him, and there’s a pale orange light forcing itself through the heavy curtains she’d insisted on putting over every window in the apartment. Eddie thinks it must be the dawn. He squints against it.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He’s wearing his favorite red jacket, and a polo, and  _ loafers _ \-- in bed! Upon realizing this, he sits up, throws his feet out of the bed. But it’s too late. There’s already dirt and grime from the soles collected in the bed, and when he stands up to try and clean it before Myra wakes up, he notices something far more horrifying.

There is a large stain of red, the exact shade Eddie would expect of freshly dried blood, in the exact spot he was resting moments ago. Eddie’s breath hitches in his chest, and he reaches for his shirt, wrenches it up to make sure his gut is in tact.

He looks fine. He feels fine, except for the stinging in his cheek, the…

Something comes back to Eddie, all in a flash. He slaps a hand to his face, feels the bandage, and does not wince, because it’s only a stinging.

He glances at Myra. She is still sound asleep, wrinkling her nose in her sleep against the dawn light. Eddie’s gut twists. He realizes, perhaps after so long of stifling it, that he is not happy here. He tries to remember the last time he was. To his surprise, it is no longer a feeling, he has a vivid memory of himself, and a group of friends, riding their bikes through the waning summer’s streets.

It’s not the only vivid memory Eddie receives. He breathes in sharply, as if being punched in the stomach, and hurries to the restroom off of their bedroom to wash his face and take off this bandage. He remembers Henry Bowers, and a knife, and a hotel bathroom, and the instant he crosses the threshold of linoleum tiles and medicine cabinets, it comes back in full. Eddie pats desperately at his bandage again, but there’s no real pain, just that same vague burning. The same that is lingering in his stomach.

Eddie wonders if he has just had a very realistic feeling dream. He glances again at his clothing in the cabinet mirror, and considers the dirt his shoes left in the bed, and thinks that, perhaps, something is very wrong.

He feels the weight of his phone in his pocket all at once, and a phone call comes back to memory. He remembers the conversation, the feeling it left him with, the childhood it dredged back up. Eddie chews on his tongue for a moment, clenching it between his teeth until it hurts, and then reaches for his phone and checks the date.

It is several days earlier than he remembers it being. This is impossible. This is the day Mike Hanlon calls him. Eddie stares at himself in the mirror until his eyes start to water, and then he blinks and desperately peels away the bandage on his face.

There’s nothing there. Not even a scar. Eddie pats at his cheek with that same shaky fury to it for a minute, but feels only his mole.

“What the fuck,” Eddie murmurs at the mirror, and his voice comes out cracked and breathless.

For suddenly having regained an entire piece of himself, including the group of people he’d loved most, Eddie Kaspbrak feels relatively calm. A little bewildered, maybe, and scared, of course, scared  _ shitless _ , because, yeah, maybe he remembers those people, but he also remembers that clown, and that was terrifying! But today Mike Hanlon called-- calls-- will call him, and the seven of them will reunite in Derry, and…

Seven.  _ Seven _ , there’s something wrong with that number. Eddie continues to stare at himself in the mirror. He pats the side of his face again. Henry stabbed (will stab?) him here, and some of the Losers were ( _ will be? _ ) there, but others…

A very acute feeling of dread is suddenly choking Eddie out. He’s forgetting something, but he can’t forget it, because if he forgets it, that’s bad. Was it seven? Was it ever seven?

Eddie’s phone rings. He picks it up without even glancing at the number.

“Mike!” Eddie gasps, and there’s a confused hum on the other end.

“No, Mr. Kaspbrak. I’m calling to continue our conversation from last week. I know it’s early there, is this a good time?” It’s a woman’s voice. Eddie knows he should recognize her, but she doesn’t register in his brain. Right now, he’s repeating the same five names like a mantra in his brain (richietozier and billdenbrough and mike Hanlon and Beverlymarsh and benhanscom and billDenbrough and richie tozier and beverlymarsh and bill denbrough and  _ Richie Tozier _ ), trying to figure out what he’s missing.

Eddie blinks at the mirror. He feels as though he is looking at a distorted version of himself. “I’m-- no, I’m sorry, could we do this another time?”

“Oh, of course, could you give me an idea of when?”

“How-- how about, uh, next Tuesday, how’s that sound?” The name is at the tip of his tongue, both of them. Eddie is squinting at himself in the mirror. How could he have forgotten? This is clearly a client, and this is clearly someone important to him, he shouldn’t have  _ forgotten _ .

“That sounds perfect, Mr. Kaspbrak. I’ll make sure to call later, as well--”

“Yeah, yes, thank you, bye.” Eddie hangs up. He doesn’t have the time to feel bad. He can’t focus on remembering two names, he has to focus on this one.

And suddenly, like a bullet fired somewhere in his brain, it dawns upon Eddie with startling clarity and horror: Stanley Uris is dead.

No, no,  _ no _ , hold on, that’s not entirely true. Stanley Uris isn’t dead yet. He dies, yes, but not yet, and that gives Eddie-- well, that gives Eddie time, doesn’t it?

He glances at Myra through the still open restroom door. She is turned away from him now, facing the window, breathing evenly in her sleep. Eddie wrestles with telling her about it for a moment and finally decides against it. He remembers he crashes his car if he is driving while Mike calls, and he doesn’t want to do that. He’ll tell her he was feeling under the weather, and she’ll poke at him for a while, and finally either fall back on acting as if he disgusting for having the audacity to be ill, or dote on him anxiously, but it’ll be better than having to find a way to cover the car.

Eddie considers heading straight for his computer, and then he glances at himself again in the mirror, and then down at the trail of dirt his loafers have left, and his lip curls. He’s got some hours before Mike’s call. He can shower before that.

+

There’s a gentle knock at the door.

Stanley Uris wakes with a start. There’s a dull ache in his head and a lingering itch in his forearms. He’s in the bathtub. He must’ve fallen asleep here. Not good, but it’s happened before.

“Stan? You’ve got a call coming through. Unknown number,” Patty tells him through the door, and there’s a pause as Stan looks around the room, trying to regain his bearings. “I can tell them you’re busy, if you like.”

His watch is sitting beside the sink. He can’t see the time, but it must be early. He doesn’t normally take late-night baths. Ill timing for one. He breathes out, glances at his hands, calls, “Can you let it ring? I’ll call back soon.”

Stan doesn’t have to see Patty’s face to know the smile she gives the door. They’ve been together long enough. He hears her hum and answer, “Alright.” There’s a pause, as if she’s got something else to stay, but the sound of her footsteps moving away from the door comes before any other question. 

He sighs. There’s nothing wrong with his wrists, but still they itch, and he idly scratches at one as he stands and takes a towel.

Something is off. He has a feeling he knows who was on the other end of that phone call, but he hasn’t thought -- _ couldn’t _ think? -- about them in years. Why would it be now, years later, that all that comes back?

Stan knows why. As he dries his hair, he knows. Twenty-seven years. The pit of dread that’s been sitting in his stomach ever since he left Derry to attend college thousands of miles away makes sense now.

How do you dread something that you can’t remember?

Something tells him he knows how. Something else tells him not to think about it too much, because then his heart rate increases and his wrists itch more, and something about that sensation is deeply disturbing.

Stan will have to return that call. It’s not Mike Hanlon (the name comes easy to Stan once he knows it’s there, the way the good things only seem to come for him  _ after  _ all the bad), it’s too early for the day in that, and Stan isn’t sure why he feels so certain it’s going to happen.

He must’ve had a weird dream during his bathtub nap. Dreaming about Derry, and the Losers, and IT, and-- and suddenly this strikes him as weird. He shouldn’t remember these things waking up. He never remembers these things waking up.

Stan rolls up the sleeves of the cardigan he’s tugged on over his button-up, scratching absently at his forearm before he tightens his watch around his wrist. His hair is still wet, but he’s got a call to return.

+

Eddie taps impatiently at his leg. He’s waiting at a stoplight, phone propped up on its stand, heading to the pharmacy at Myra’s behest. 

He’s got his other hand on the steering wheel, glaring at the street without really seeing it. He doesn’t make for a very good risk analyst, apparently, since the only risk he’s analyzing at the present moment is  _ what if that phone number was wrong  _ and  _ what if he’s too late _ and  _ what if it happens the exact same way again _ , but he does make for a good husband! He’s doing exactly what Myra said to, if only to avoid crashing his car this time.

As the light turns green, his phone starts to ring on the dash. Eddie glances at it for a moment, notes the number he doesn’t recognize, and hits answer before returning his hands to the wheel and moving ahead.

There’s clouds hanging overhead. He’s grateful for the coverage.

“This is Stanley Uris, returning your call from earlier. Who is this, if I may?”

Eddie nearly crashes his car again. He slams on the brakes, producing an ear-splitting shriek of rubber against road, but the car behind him is far enough away so as to stop safely. The driver lays on the honk until Eddie throws up a bird behind him and gets his own vehicle moving again, but then it’s been long enough that there’s a weary sigh, and  _ Stanley Uris _ (how could Eddie have ever forgotten?) says, “Hello?”

“Stan! Shit, I’m sorry, I’m driving, I-- how’ve you-- listen, fuck, I’m gonna cut right to the chase, you can’t kill yourself, buddy!”

A pause. Finally, in the same voice of tired fire Eddie remembers from childhood, “Excuse me?”

“It’s Eddie, Eddie--”

“Kaspbrak. Yes. I know.”

“You--” Eddie starts, and he exhales, tries to lose a little some of the energy that’s making his spine feel like a steel rod in his back, drops his voice a level, “You do? You remember too?”

“Yes. I remember.” Eddie hears a tapping on the other end of the line before Stan continues, “You remember, too. How? Did you have a dream as well?”

Eddie doesn’t know what to say.  _ A dream. _ Stanley Uris thinks this was a dream. Eddie almost mentally berates him, and then realizes with a pang of shame that Eddie would suspect the same. Except Eddie woke up with blood staining his sheets -- oh, Christ, he still has to clean those and hope Myra doesn’t notice, so much to do, so little time -- and dirt on his loafers, and Stan…

How did Stan wake up?

“No, no, not a dream. Stan, it was real. I fuckin’... I know it was.”

“That’s impossible, Eddie,” Stan sighs again over the phone, and Eddie is reminded of the fact that no matter how much things change, they stay the same just as so. Eddie supposes he and Myra are a living example of this.

“Except it isn’t, Stan, I know it isn’t, why would either of us suddenly remember Derry and all of it after so long?”

“Perhaps you should look into your mental health. Talk to a therapist about PTSD. It has been twenty-seven years, Eddie. Maybe your brain has finally decided it’s time to handle it.”

Eddie bangs his hand against the steering wheel. His car releases a honk, and Eddie jumps and flinches as if he’s been struck when Stan says, “Shit!” through the phone.

“Sorry! Sorry,” Eddie apologizes quickly, but he can still hear Stan muttering something too far from the phone to make sense. “I-- you know that’s bullshit, Stanley. It was bullshit when we were kids and it’s bullshit now.”

Stan is quiet. Eddie keeps driving. He spots the turn for the pharmacy coming up and drives right past it. He’s not cutting this call short, even for his medication.

“What happened to you?” Stan’s question is quiet, too. Eddie keeps staring at the street. He’s not sure what to say. He upposes he should just be grateful that Stan didn’t call it a dream.

“I… I went back to Derry. I met the others, the other Losers, and we went to this-- look, Stan, it’s so much, but it wasn’t a dream. I know it wasn’t. I woke up,” (Stan sighs on the other end), “No,  _ listen  _ to me, I woke up this morning with blood on the sheets and dirt on my shoes. You-- you know me, Stan, you know I wasn’t that kid and I’m not that person! I don’t go to sleep fully-fuckin’-clothed with dirty shoes. I mean, that’s disgusting.”

There’s no reply for a minute. Not even the sound of typing on the other end. “No. No, you weren’t ever that kid,” Stan admits in a weary voice, and Eddie hears him sigh again. Eddie guesses this is the verbal equivalent to rolling one’s eyes. “So, what, you’re saying you somehow lived all that out, and something happened, and now you’re in the past again?”

“That’s gotta be it, right? I mean-- I called you, and you knew me, like-- like not the way we know Mike when he calls. It’s all there, isn’t it? All of Derry?”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Eddie.”

“But it’s the truth.”

“Maybe.”

Eddie exhales. He hadn’t even realized he was tense until the relief of hearing Stan admit this sinks in. And then he remembers Stan’s response to finding out It had come back, and he’s on high alert again. “Stan?”

“What is it, Eddie?”

“You’re not… you’re not gonna kill yourself this time, right?”

“Fuck’s sake, Eddie,” Stan says, hardly above a breath.

There’s a dial tone. Eddie glances at his phone. He’s been hung up on.

+

When Stan hurries down the stairs with his satchel over his shoulder, Patty looks up.

She’s sitting at the couch, laptop in her lop, fingers hovering over the keys as she watches a crime drama play out on the television. “Stan?” she calls, shutting the laptop with an easy click. “Are you okay?”

He pauses, looks back at her, weighs this questions for a moment. “No. But it’ll be alright. I’ve got to take care of something.”

Patty sets the laptop on the coffee table, next to a jigsaw puzzle Stan was planning to start that evening. According to what Eddie seems to believe were endeavors into the future, he had. But Stan doesn’t have the time for that now, not with the drive he’s to make and the way Patty looks around at him. She tilts her head, offers him that same sympathetic smile she always does. The sight alone is comforting, and Stan smiles back at her, does his best to return the expression.

(He feels guilty about expecting so much from her. He always has. She says it’s not an issue, that she knows he’d do the same for her, has before, but he guesses that’s the thing about it. You’re more inclined to believe yourself than anyone around you.)

“Anything I can do?” Patty’s voice is soft. Stan considers asking her to come with him, but even he isn’t sure of where he’s going yet. So he shakes his head, smiles again.

“Something I have to do alone,” he answers vaguely, and she nods. “I’m going to go to Maine. Back to Derry.”

Patty sighs a quiet sigh. “That’s a long way, Stan. And everything you’ve ever told me about the place… Are you sure?”

Stan worries his lower lip for a moment. How easy would it be to say no, to set down the only bag he’s got and stay? He looks up at her, runs a hand through his hair. “If you made a promise to someone, years ago, that you’d go back and do something after a certain time has passed, would you keep it?”

Patty peers at him, eases her chin into her palm. “I’m not sure, Stan. What’s the something?”

“Hard to explain. And you’d be able to see some of the best friends you ever had, again, but-- but the thing you’re dealing with, it’s just… evil.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in evil. Just good deeds and bad deeds,” Patty’s tone is one of concerned amusement. Her eyes are squinted, as if she’s trying to reason out her answer to the question and is speaking only to pass the time. Stan closes his eyes, leans against the wall.

“I don’t,” he answers. “This is an exception, though.”

Patty hums. “Do you think those friends will all keep their end?”

Stan shouldn’t know the answer to this. He knows he shouldn’t, because if what is feeling less and less like a dream is true, then he was never even supposed to make it back to Derry. He knows anyway. “They will.” Pause. “It was a blood oath.”

She nods, glances back around at the TV, where the troubles of Spencer Reid seem farther away than ever. “I’d keep it. But it’s not me, it’s you. What would you do?”

Stan swallows. He considers this. What  _ would  _ he do?

“I… would sit next to you for a while.”

He opens his eyes to see Patty smiling at him. She pats the couch beside her, and Stan steps down the final stair, moving for the couch with his knees locket and his shoulders rigid. He sits down, wavers for a minute, and then slowly, gingerly leans over, resting his head in Patty’s lap.

“Is this okay?” he murmurs, and Patty answers by gently combing a hand through his hair.

She keeps at it, and Stan closes his eyes again, taking a moment to just exist.

“You’re driving up to Maine?” Patty asks, and Stan nods against her lap. “That’s a long drive.”

“Need something to focus on. Flight won’t do it.”

Patty hums in understanding. “Are you going to bring a suitcase?”

Part of Stan’s brain says he won’t need it, because he won’t be making it to Maine. The other part of Stan’s brain remembers Eddie’s voice in that call, and he furrows his brow without opening his eyes.

“I should,” he sighs, and makes no move to get up.

Criminal Minds plays on the television. He can’t tell if Patty is watching it or him, and he doesn’t bother to open his eyes and find out.

Stan decides that it is better to get the peace he can right now. He’s pretty certain there won’t be a lot of it going around in his hometown.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed, if there's any mistakes or something i should tag or such, please let me know!


End file.
